A federal judge in Los Angeles ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to pay $97 million to mortgage bankers and consultants in California who did not get the breaks mandated under state law, Bloomberg News reports. The company, who had argued that it only owed $25 million to its employees, intends to appeal the ruling.
Bank of America Corp. is facing a class-action lawsuit in California that accuses its former subsidiary, LandSafe, of inflating assessments of property values to boost mortgage volumes in the lead-in to the financial crisis, the Financial Times reports. LandSafe was the appraisals arm of Countrywide Financial Corp., which BofA purchased in 2008. BofA sold LandSafe to CoreLogic Inc. in 2015.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC is paying a $4.9 billion civil penalty as part of its agreement in principle with the U.S. Attorney's Office to settle potential civil claims to the bank's structuring and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities issued between 2005 and 2008, Reuters reports.
On Capitol Hill, Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., and Steve Pearce, R-N.M., are preparing to introduce a bill on Bank Secrecy Act reform through the House Financial Services Committee soon. The bill would include measures such as raising the threshold for currency transaction reporting to $30,000 from $10,000. The bill will likely not be part of negotiations for a separate financial regulatory bill that will supposedly roll together the "noncontroversial" House bills left out of the Senate's Dodd-Frank package legislation.
In other parts of the world
Asia Pacific: AMP posts Q1 results; New Zealand holds rate; India mulls new insurance rules
Europe: RBS to pay $4.9B to settle US probe; UniCredit Q1 profit up 22.6% YOY
Middle East & Africa: Samba Q1 profit rises 6% YOY; Bahrain says reserves enough to keep dollar peg
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a mixed opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng rose 0.89% to 30,809.22, while the Nikkei 225 was up 0.39% to 22,497.18.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 fell 0.35% to 7,635.86, and the Euronext 100 was down 0.16% to 1,068.16.
On the macro front
The consumer price index, the jobless claims report, the Energy Information Administration natural gas report, the treasury budget report, the Federal Reserve balance sheet and the money supply report are due out today.
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